Notes from Evil Bender

I started to write this post as a response to Mishka P’s comment about the language of the reproductive freedom debate, and it got really long, so I move it up here. Mishka’s way brighter than I am, and a hell of a lot better scholar, but I’ll take a shot at responding anyway. Here goes:

Well said. If I had to write it over again, the phrasing would have read “Which I define as giving women control over their own reproductive choices, including the right to avoid forced childbirth.”

But you’re exactly right, and similar thinking is what has caused me to adopt “reproductive justice” as a better and more necessary framing than “pro-choice.”

I will admit, however, that Silliman’s argument also causes me some concern, mainly because tropes which downplay individual liberty are easily abused to justify oppression on the ground of the nebulous “greater good.” Both appeals to justice and to freedom–individual liberty–are necessary if we are to ever have a world where everyone has their needs met without having their lives controlled.

What I’m trying to get at is that a fine line must be walked. Too much emphasis on “freedom” without acknowledgment of the social framework which functions to control those under it leads to Libertarian nonsense like the poverty-enforcing “flat tax.” Too much emphasis on “justice” as a social issue can be used manipulate us into ignoring the very real needs of individuals in order to support a larger agenda.

Take for example the recent arguments among feminists in the blogosphere about sex work and its sociopolitical implications. I think the Lizard Queen’s argument is more eloquent than I could manage, as are a number of the comments in that thread, but I’d add one thing: the desire to deal with the very real impact of a patriarchal society on the sex roles of women is admirable, but to focus exclusively on that issue (a legitimate social justice issue) misses how it converges with other important issues, such as the economic realities of women who must choose between difficult options laden with meaning on a number of social levels.

A social justice that would condemn a woman for profiting of the desires of men is serving a larger cause at the expense of those it strikes to protect, just as an appeal the choice of women misses the opportunity for such appeals to justice as unionization and workplace safety.

As always, the world is more complex than the best metaphors we can adopt to explain it. The dialog of reproduction is a compelling and worthwhile one, and the frames will effect the nature of the discussion in truly profound ways. I’d like to thank Mishka P for keeping me honest and for being ultra-cool on top of that, and I’d like to know her thoughts, and the thoughts of the rest of my readers, on this issue.